ADHAN OF THE TRUE BELIEVER: ALLAMA MUHAMMAD IQBAL AND THE BILALIAN SPIRIT OF ISLAM

• Published date: 30 June 2021

“The dawn which causes the forces of darkness to tremble with fear, is brought forth by the Adhan of a true believer (momin)”.1

The ritual of Adhan has survived but the Bilalian spirit has departed…, just as philosophy remains bereft of ghazals…2

We may ask ourselves, where is that dawn with the ‘clarion sound', the one in which the great Philosopher-poet from Hind, Sir Allama Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938), so yearned for and poetically refers to in his Zarb-i-Kalim (The Rod of Moses), a deeply moving philosophical work written at the end of his life? It is an exhaustive foray into what were some of his most powerful themes and is written with a clarity of thought and pen that is astounding in its breadth and depth. For according to Allama Iqbal, the dawn of which he speaks is one like none other, as it is a dawn that causes the forces of darkness to tremble, the mountains ‘to shiver' with fear…bringing forth an Adhan of the ‘true believer.'

One can only imagine the power behind that Adhan, at a time when: ‘the white thread from the black thread of the dawn.',3 meet and the voice of the Mu'adhdhin incants: ‘As-salaatu khayrun min al nawm, As-salaatu khayrun min al nawm' or: ‘prayer is better than sleep, prayer is better than sleep', ringing forth and waking every living creature in prostration and full remembrance of Him.

And it is in this way that one cannot help but try and imagine that very first Adhan, the Adhan of God's humble servant, Bilal, which was given before the community of true believers who walked this earth as pilgrims in the earliest days of the faith. And so as the words: ‘Allahu Akbar' rolled off of his Ethiopian tongue, its Ge'ez tinged sound cloaked in his sonorous voice, it surely must have quaked the soul of absolutely every living thing. And just as there are stories which attest to how the Prophet's recitation of the Quran was so beautiful in its day that it had the power to pull all believers and non believers alike toward His Divine message, I imagine that Bilal's own Adhan must have done the same with respect to prayer.

But what is ‘the Adhan of the true believer' and the dawn to which Allama Iqbal refers, this poet-Philosopher who was no doubt touched by none other than Gabriel's very own wing4? And can we not view ‘the Adhan of the true believer' from within the brilliant prism of being the complete and perfect embodiment of all his philosophical ideals? As such, Iqbal's Adhan serves as a massive wake-up call for humanity, a call in which ‘The secret of the self is hid, in words “No god but He alone,” and in which the heavy veil of falsehood is lifted, allowing for a new dawn of consciousness that is guided more by action and by spiritual grace than it is by idle thought. For Iqbal knew that in order for the human being to reach a much higher spiritual state that it would have to go through a constant process of polishing the Self and that the clearest path to this end lies encoded in the Shahada: ‘Ashhadu ‘an la ilaha illa Allah' and in constant prayer, dhikr, remembrance of Him:

The self is just a dull-edged sword, No god but He, the grinding stone...5

And so, within this context the daily prayers and the continuous remembrance of Him may be thought of as the spiritual grinding stone which steadfastly separates the wheat from the chaff until the husk of the human soul eventually falls away revealing a near perfect kernel or state within.

When Iqbal speaks of the Adhan, and refers to it as a ‘clarion sound' and in metaphorical terms, ‘of the light of dawn', we may think of it as being akin to the unveiling of the human spirit as it passes through the various spiritual stages and humanity's desire to find meaning and form in its own more limited existence:

He yearns that self may last' yond Time and Space.

To have a life steadfast is his desire,

He seeks some rules to guide his life entire.

The source, that gloom dispels, spreads light around,

Is worship call at morn with clarion sound.6

The word ‘clarion', is perhaps an interesting choice of words, even for Iqbal, as traditionally speaking it refers to a shrill medieval brass instrument. But within the Iqbalian universe it makes complete sense, as it is a most apt way to refer to the way in which the sleeping person will be jarred awake, seized by the moment of Truth in this worldly life (al-hayat al-dunya) and brings to mind the well known Hadith qudsi: ‘people are asleep and when they die they awaken (al-nas niyam fa-idha matu intabahu)' Or in the case of the early Morning Prayer, which stands to be the most important prayer of the day.

But perhaps the use of the word ‘Clarion' is also a veiled reference to ‘The Day of Noise and Clamour' which we find in the Quran:

... Yawma yakunu al-nasu ka-al-farashi al-mabthuthi... (It is) a day whereon men will be like moths scattered about… wa takunu al-jibalu ka-al-AAihni al-manfooshi … and the mountains will be like carded wool7.

Within this context, Iqbal's ‘clarion call' is a loud and brassy sound , the ideal instrument with which to shake the believer to his or her core, instilling the fear of the Day of Resurrection and an awareness of one's own temporal place in this world. And within a broader context, does not Iqbal's own voice ring forth as an ideal reminder, a heart wrenching call to human kind to wake up…and join the spiritual chorus of the true believer by not forgetting its Lord?

But we may also wonder, where did, as Iqbal coined the expression, that ‘Bilalian spirit' of Islam depart to? For according to him, it is not to be found in the masjids who also ‘mourn the loss of true believers'… those ‘noble souls adorned with the attributes and qualities of Hijaz…8" For the masjids, according to Iqbal, appear as living, breathing things capable of knowing the difference between a believer and a non-believer. And this poetic concept - or even device - only reinforces the idea of an entire world in waiting and in which every living and non-living thing is a veritable witness to the long, deep slumber of His human creation.

We are caught as though in a Bilalian time warp when we try and imagine what the early days of Islam were like. And it becomes easy to understand Iqbal's affinity for Rumi, who in a similar vein once said:

The great scholars of the age have gained total knowledge and complete mastery of things that have nothing to do with them. But that which is important and closer to him than anything else, namely his own self, this he does not know.... Wretched humanity! Not knowing his own self, man has come from a high estate and fallen into lowliness!

The idea of going back to the earliest days of Islam for answers, to the time of the Prophet when Islam's first followers were just starting to pray five times a day and where stories abounded on how the Prophet handled this situation or that, is not a new one and is one which has been explored heavily. His prayers have been recorded and recited for their beauty, and much Hadith literature exists on the subject. Allama Iqbal had a deep abiding love for the Prophet and in the following two verses alone one can easily ascertain the full extent of his admiration and awe:

If you owe love and loyalty to Muhammad (S.A.W), I am yours. This whole universe is insignificant--you will have The Pen and the Tablet to write your destiny yourself, as you wish.9

And also in the verse:

Lift yourself to the feet of Muhammad (S.A.W), because he is the faith, the entire faith; if you fail to reach him, the rest is all pagan hood and heathenism.10

In the above two sayings that we find the perfect expression of not only complete faith, but also in the idea that the Prophet is the absolute measure, the pristine example, the heart and soul of the religion and the one for whom all should aim to emulate. And this reality was taught by the Prophet's wife ‘Aisha and is explained in the Hadith literature; for it is she who once proclaimed that the personality of the Prophet was in fact the Quran. So this idea of unity, of becoming one with the faith, has its roots in both the Quran and in how the Prophet lived his life but also in how this perfect example of his was reported in the Hadith literature.

Little commentary however, exists on the concept of the Adhan in Iqbal's thought and this is certainly true when thinking of its central importance for the individual and within the wider context of the Islamic faith. In my field research on the Adhan which focused on its impact on the individual living in Cairo, Egypt, this reality became all too well known. The Adhan has enormous transformative qualities, and in some way affects every, living thing. But with respect to Iqbal, we find what Annemarie Schimmel terms as the spiritualization of the Adhan; “Iqbal has spiritualized the Adhan in the same way as he has transformed most of the Islamic symbols'. And it is easy to be reminded of Rumi here, whom one can easily imagine expressing himself in the same way that Iqbal does:

You find yourself the time to your

standing in prayer:

There is no Adhan for the ritual prayer of love and intoxication11

But it is in the sentiment below that we find the perfect expression of what can only be Iqbal's utter frustration and despair at the human condition as he looks to Bilal - who is almost interchangeable with Iqbal's concept of the eagle here - and the mosques once again as this idea of mosques that mourn the presence of the noble, true believer is presented:

Lifeless hangs the call to prayer, with no Bilal to lend it wings,

Silenced is the voice of worship,

the deserted mosques lament12

And so, in the context of examining the heart of Islam, we will recall the Islamic oral call to prayer, or Adhan, a word with its Arabic etymological roots in the word to ‘hear' to ‘listen', and one which is forever historically tied to Bilal, who gave that very first call to prayer. The Adhan may be viewed as a pristine embodiment of the major tenants of the faith, a brilliant lighthouse...